266 Ernst Hartert : 



boys ; as long' as countless eggs are wantonly destroyed by 

 boys and uneducated keepers and gardeners — similar and worse 

 things happen in other monarchies. Continental ornitholo- 

 gists can tell us of the destruction of seabirds on Juist, and of 

 the shooting and catching* in Italy during springtime. 

 Education of boys and public, and the preservation or creating 

 of breeding-places will be more valuable than " bird-laws" — 

 and wherever "bird-laws " prevent and hinder collecting for 

 scientific purposes, they go beyond their justifiable limit. 



Aviculture is generally a hobby, and a very interesting one, 

 but not strictly a branch of science, although sometimes 

 scientific questions have been and will be solved by its means, 

 especially when experiments are made with that purpose. 



Much time and energy is spent in egg-collecting ; this is 

 now generally called "oology," a word originally applied to 

 the study of eggs — and it is an usurpation of an ignorant, 

 though ardent, egg-collector to call himself an " oologist." 

 Naturally we wish to know all eggs and everything in 

 connection with them, but time and energy are wasted if no 

 attempt is made to identify the birds who laid these eggs, and 

 without an intimate knowledge of the forms of birds which 

 inhabit the country where a collection is made. Insufficiently 

 identified eggs are more harmful than useful to science. 

 Therefore in less known countries, eggs should be identified 

 by preserving and carefully labelling the parent bird, and 

 this should even be done, in certain cases, in better known 

 countries, as for example, where several species of Creepers 

 (Certhia), and the so-called Marshtits (Parus), and others 

 inhabit the same area. 



The same must be said about the field-notes : they are 

 of very little value to science unless the birds which are 

 observed are perfectly (not only superficially) known, and in 

 all doubtful cases they must be procured, preserved, and 

 carefully labelled. Even in West and Central Europe many 

 species and subspecies are insufficiently known. That this 

 is true becomes evident if we remember that most British 

 and other Ornithologists are still in ignorance about the two 

 species of Marshtits and Creepers occurring in most countries 

 of Europe ; that we do not know the exact limits in Germany 



